Robert Ernest Foden was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on the 26th April 1889, the son of George Edmund and Eleanor Foden (née Sharp). His father was a house painter and decorator who died in 1900. He had an older brother, George Edmond, and a younger brother and sister, Walter Thomas, and Eleanor Bertha.
Nothing is known about his formative years, but at some stage of his life he had joined the Mercantile Marine as a waiter on passenger ships, and also began to use his second forename “Ernest” as his usual name.
He joined the crew of the Lusitania on the 29th April 1915 in New York, as a waiter in the Stewards' Department just in time for her last voyage. His rate of pay was £4-5s.-0d (£4.25p.) per month. His previous ship had been the S.S. Paumonia.
He was on board the Lusitania when she left New York for the last time on the early afternoon of the 1st May 1915 and just six days later, when the liner was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, he survived, to be rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, from where he eventually got back to his native hometown.
Once there, he was officially discharged from the liner’s last voyage and given the balance of pay owed to him for his one way voyage. This amounted to £1-18s.-2d., (£1.90p.).
He does not appear in a list of crew known to have been on board the Lusitania when the ship was sunk, however, which was published by The Cunard Steam Ship Company, on March the 1st 1916. The simple reason for this is that he was mistakenly named Waiter Ernest Toder, when Cunard first complied a list of crew members present on her final Atlantic crossing, almost certainly because his signature was misread at the time. Consequently, he was missed off the 1916 list entirely but as no-one named Ernest Toder appeared on the list of survivors, Cunard naturally assumed that he had perished!
He does, however, appear in a Particulars of Discharge ledger which is still extant in the Public Record Office in Richmond, London. He was aged 26 years at the time of the sinking.
Following his experience, Ernest Foden joined the British Army in Manchester in September 1915. As 4313 Private R.E. Foden, he served in the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry before transferring to the 18th Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment. At some point he became engaged to Caroline Edith Mackenzie, a Scottish
girl, who at the time of his death was working at the Forresters Arms, Kingskettle, Fifeshire.
58081 Private Robert Ernest Foden, 18th Bn. King’s Liverpool Regiment, died of wounds in a field hospital near Le Treport, Seine Maritime, France, on the 24th November 1918 – thirteen days after the Armistice. It is not known when or where he was wounded. His remains were buried in Mont Huon Cemetery, Le Treport, Plot X, Row B, Grave 5B, where he lies today. He was aged 29 years.
At the time of his death, his mother, who was now Mrs. Lucy Spence, was residing at 20. Ferndale Road, Waterloo, Liverpool, which was given as his address when his will was proven. He left his estate of £53-11s.-0d. (£53.55p.) to a Mrs. Margaret Trodden, described as the wife of Hugh Trodden. It is not known what relationship existed, if any, between them.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1919, 1891 Census of England, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, Cunard Records, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Liverpool Echo, Probate Records, PRO BT 100/345, UniLiv D92/6/1, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 22nd November 2023.